Updating the Interpretive Turn: New Arguments in Hermeneutics

This book explores the meaning of the interpretive turn in the philosophy of the human sciences for a variety of contemporary philosophical debates.

While hermeneutics seems to be firmly established as a tradition and methodology in the human sciences, interpretive philosophy seems to be under increasing pressure in recent philosophical trends such as the "posthuman turn," the "nonhuman turn," and the "speculative turn." Responding to this predicament, this book shows how hermeneutics is gaining new force and fresh applications today by bringing together a group of leading interpretive philosophers to address such timely topics as the entanglement of social science, culture, and politics in liberal capitalist societies, the extremism with which some identities are held within those societies, the possibility of genuine, non-relativist dialogue in a "post-truth" era, the nature of the strong moral judgments people tend to make in that era, the significance of interpretation for understanding nonhuman life forms, and the inherently hermeneutic dimension of such practices as work and productive action, testimony and witnessing, and measurement in scientific practice.

Updating the Interpretive Turn will be of interest to researchers working in critical social science, social philosophy, ethical theory, environmental philosophy, philosophy of work, philosophy of testimony, philosophy of measurement, and philosophical hermeneutics itself.

Michiel Meijer is a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. His recent publications include "Articulating Better, Being Better: Ethical Emancipation and the Sources of Motivation." Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2022) 25:1, 107–122 and "Clarifying Moral Clarification: On Taylor’s Contribution to Metaethics." International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2021) 29:5, 705–722.